Mirror of the Mist
by Tsukinon
Summary: A Hidden Mist kunoichi is found near Konoha. She has no memory, but does have a bloodline trait similar to the sharingan. What will happen when she is sent to train with Team 7? And what about that curse mark?
1. Memories Lost, Kunoichi found

**A/N: W00t, new story up! Yeah, I'm being very lazy about my other stories, I know! Bad Tsuki, very bad Tsuki! -scolds self- Oh yeah, I keep forgetting to put this, but I'm not going to repeat it. I AM NOT KISHIMOTO-SAN! I DO NOT OWN NARUTO! Okay, now that that's outta da way, enjoy the story! Please review!**

* * *

I lay facedown. My entire body was numb, unfeeling…it seemed as if my senses themselves had died. I strained my mind, trying to think through the thick haze behind my closed eyes, to remember something. But I had absolutely no recollection of my past whatsoever, not where I was from, others I may have known, nor any idea of how I had gotten where I was. Not even my own name. Whenever I tried to bring forth any sort of memory, I only encountered that same impenetrable barrier into my mind, which blocked any sense of who I was.

It seemed like an eternity before I had any sensation of where I was. I felt a sort of grime underneath me…probably mud. But why was I laying here, on the ground? Before I could ponder the thought any more, I noticed a pattering sound coming from all directions. It was rain, and it left icy trails as the drops ran down my skin, causing me to shiver slightly. It was very cold.

Then, slowly, carefully, I tried moving my right hand in front of my face. But as soon as the muscles tensed, an excruciating, nearly unbearable pain immediately shot up my arm to my side, which hurt terribly. I put my other hand on my side and felt warm blood. I winced, but kept moving my arm. Pushing myself almost upright (despite my protesting side), I squinted through the small gap between my eyelids. A thick forest, darkened by black clouds overhead, swam into view. Then, with much difficulty, I stood, swaying on the spot, and tried walking along the narrow and winding trail. After a few minutes, though, I had to lean on a nearby tree for support, panting heavily. After regaining enough strength to move a little farther, I staggered once again into the unknown woods.

The trail soon widened considerably, yet I was still too weak to support myself, so I kept to the edge of the forest so the trees could continue to hold my weight. But my foot suddenly caught on a protruding root and I fell foreword. I tried to get up again but fell again when I realized that my ankle had broken. I sobbed hopelessly, certain that I would die right here when no one would bother to look for me; helpless, hurt, hungry, and cold…

About an hour passed before I stopped crying, but my face was far from dry due to the rain, which seemed to be falling heavier than ever before. My swollen ankle throbbed painfully and prevented me from getting up. Yet I did not want to give up hope just yet; I feebly attempted to convince myself that there was still a chance of being found by somebody, anybody…

I winced as a sudden, unexpected pain came from my left shoulder. Reaching there, I felt that the skin was raw and hot, and there were two puncture wounds under my fingers. Pulling my hand away, I figured that the wounds were fresh, since the tips of my fingers were covered by a small trickle of blood.

Then, unexpectedly, I felt extremely drained. I felt consciousness leaving me again. But before my eyes closed once more, I thought I saw the blurry outline of someone coming down the trail in my direction. It could have been wishful thinking, but I highly doubted that my mind was playing tricks on me as I fainted.

* * *

Shizune bustled through the room, tidying up around the small futon near the wall. She paused in her work to glance at the unconscious girl buried under the multitude of thick blankets. Shizune and Tonton had been in a neighboring town to get some herbs for Tsunade, and it had started to rain on the way back to Konoha. But as they were running down the path, they came across the girl. She seemed to be almost dead, extremely pale due to blood loss from a deep gash in her side. Her ankle was broken, and her long black hair was matted with mud. Also, it appeared as if Orochimaru had found another victim for the infamous curse mark. It was no wonder that she had already been asleep for almost two days now.

Just then Tsunade herself came through the doorway, Tonton trotting at her heels.

"How is she?"

"She still hasn't shown any signs of waking up," replied Shizune, glancing nervously at the girl's headband lying on the small table nearby, and at the Hidden Mist Village's symbol etched into it.

"I wouldn't expect her to, just yet," said Tsunade, feeling the kunoichi's forehead. "Besides, her fever is still very high. It wouldn't do us much good if she woke up and strained herself right now."

"You're probably right. But what I'm most concerned about is why she was in Konoha's forest to begin with when she was hurt so badly, and especially when her village is on an island far from here." She sighed wearily. "I just don't understand."

"If you're so curious about it, maybe you should ask her the same thing when she wakes up, Shizune."

"Maybe…" She was still a bit discontented, though. Especially remembering the extremely sharp sword that the girl had carried with her. Surely, with a weapon like that, she could have prevented almost anyone from injuring her so badly?

_Oh well_, she thought, _I guess I'll listen to Tsunade-sama for once and wait until the girl wakes up. I'll ask her then._

Just then, the girl rolled over in her sleep, her arm flopping over the edge of the futon. Tonton walked up and nudged her hand, but jumped back when it suddenly twitched.

"Byuuuiii!" she squealed, making Shizune and Tsunade turn around to see the girl roll back over.

"She's waking up already?" Tsunade wondered aloud. She walked over and put her hand on the girl's forehead again.

"Her fever's already down."

The Hokage's hand was knocked away, and the girl attempted to sit up. But Tsunade wouldn't let her, although the thick layer of bandages around her middle made it impossible anyway.

"You shouldn't move just yet, you're still very weak," Tsunade said softly.

"Mnn…where am I?" the girl asked, opening her eyes. They were silver in color.

"You're in Konohagakure, the village hidden in the leaves," Tsunade told her. "What's you're name? How did you get here?"

The girl's eyes closed, and her forehead creased as she tried to concentrate. "I…I don't know…" she finally answered, opening her eyes again.

"You're probably just in shock," said Tsunade, reaching for a small cup of liquid. "Here, drink this. It'll help you feel better."

* * *

I took the cup from the woman's hands and drank the cool liquid. It had a strong herbal flavor, but I drank it anyway because I was so thirsty after waking up. It felt like I hadn't eaten or drink anything for days. But as I handed the small cup back to the woman, I did feel much better, and sank back into the soft pillows.

"Who are you?" I asked.

"My name is Tsunade," the woman answered. "And this is Shizune, my assistant." I turned my head to see someone with short, dark hair standing near the door, but my eyes still couldn't focus very clearly, so her face just looked like a blurry blob. I suddenly felt something nudging my hand, and looked down to see a small pink pig.

"Byui," she squealed.

"And this is Tonton," said Tsunade.

"She's cute," I said, petting Tonton's head, which she enjoyed thoroughly. She then jumped up onto the futon and settled in my lap.

"It seems as if she likes you," said Tsunade, smiling.

"Well, I guess that's one good thing that's happened to me so far." Then I flinched, and my hand flew to my shoulder. The burning pain was still there."What's happened to me, though?"

Shizune spoke up. "I found you in the nearby forest, unconcious. You had a huge gash in your side, your ankle was broken, and..." She took a deep breath before continuing. "And you also have a curse mark on your shoulder."

"A curse mark?" I asked, confused.

"You shouldn't worry about it," said Tsunade, cutting in. "It's already been sealed, and it'll stop hurting in a few days. But tell me...do you have any sort of kekkei genkai, a power that only your clan has and that someone else would want?"

I was now more confused than ever. "I have no idea."

* * *

Now it was Tsunade's turn to be confused. What would Orochimaru want with this girl if she didn't have any known bloodline traits? But then again, she had no recollection of anything, no memory whatsoever. No one would know, unless...

"I have an idea," she said slowly, thinking aloud. "Maybe, once you're fully healed, you can start training if you want, to see what sort of abilities you have." The girl's face lit up, so Tsunade continued. "We could see if you could train with one of the teams here. Who knows, maybe you'll become stronger than you were before you came into Konoha."

"That would be greatly appreciated! Thank you very much, Tsunade-san!" The girl smiled for the first time since she was found.


	2. A series of scattered introductions

**Woot! New chapter! And yes, if you've read any of my other stories and think this one's any different, that's because it is; I'm experimenting with different writing atyles. I might stick to this for this story, and continue to write my other fanfics normally...I dunno. But anyway, please enjoy the 2nd chappie!**

**O...O**

Over the week, Tsunade and Shizune have helped me recover almost constantly. Although Tsunade usually seemed to be very busy and only stopped to check on me about twice a day, Shizune kept me company, for which I was glad. Also, what Tsunade had said about the curse mark was true; within three days the pain had almost completely vanished.

When it had been a week since I had been rescued, I finally felt strong enough to start walking on my own. Soon I knew my way around the place, so I could come and go from my room when I pleased, as long as I didn't go outside. But I often became bored in the confined space, and attempted to relive my boredom by staring out the windows for hours on end, learning about the village and the people in it. My favorite perch was in the sill of a large window overlooking a busy street, from which I could watch different people go about on their daily business, meeting with friends or hurrying home for dinner with their families. How I longed to be able to walk down those streets, not as an outsider, but as one of those friends, or perhaps someone sitting at the family's dinner table. Yet I could not be; for some unknown reason, Tsunade and Shizune kept saying that I was still too weak to go out into the streets just yet, although I felt strong enough.

On the tenth day since my rescue, there came a knock on the door. Shizune rushed to answer it, and I followed her purely out of curiosity, yet staying partly hidden in the hallway. She opened the door, and in its frame stood a tall silver-haired man. The bottom half of his face was concealed by a black mask, and his shinobi headband was tilted to hide his left eye for reasons unknown to me.

"Oh, Kakashi-san, you're finally here!" Shizune exclaimed, stepping aside to let him in.

"Yeah, sorry I'm late, but Naruto got sidetracked when we passed Ichiraku," replied Kakashi. "You know how he is."

Just then I noticed that three people around my own age followed Kakashi through the door. First came a boy with raven-colored hair, who looked like he would rather be anywhere than where he was now. Following him was a pink-haired girl in a red outfit, attempting to pull another boy through the door, who was screaming that they just couldn't pass up the ramen shop like that. He had bright yellow-blond hair and strange whisker-like markings on his face.

Suddenly Shizune turned to my hiding place. "Hey, you can come out now. I want you to meet these people."

I wished that I had at least been able to brush my hair and change out of the light blue kimono that I wore, which was wrinkled from being slept in the night before. But I listened to Shizune anyway and stepped away from the wall.

**...O...**

Suddenly a black-haired girl timidly stepped into sight. She stood partly behind Shizune, staring with interest at the newcomers. Her silver eyes almost reminded the genins of the Hyuuga clan, except that they weren't as pale.

"This is the girl I told you about, Kakashi," said Shizune. "We want her to train with your team for now, until we know how strong she is."

"WHAAAT?" Naruto and Sakura said at once. Sasuke's eyes widened.

"You never told us anything about this!" exclaimed Sakura. "And here I was, wondering why the hell we were here…"

"You think _you_ were confused, Sakura-chan?" asked Naruto. "I thought we were going out to get ramen, but noooo, we had to come to Tsunade baa-chan's place instead!"

Sasuke crossed his arms. "Whatever. She's probably much stronger than she lets on, so make sure you don't annoy her too much, dobe."

Naruto's face contorted angrily. "Teme!" he shouted.

"Dobe."

"Teme!"

"I'm not gonna say it again."

"Grr…"

Sakura looked at the two boys, exasperated. _They're both idiots_, she thought.

Kakashi sweatdropped.

At that moment, Tsunade walked into the room and froze at the scene. The strange girl hid behind Shizune, who held Tonton; Kakashi with a large sweatdrop on his forehead; Sasuke and Naruto facing in opposite directions with their arms crossed; and Sakura looking slightly embarrassed about her teammates causing a scene.

"What's going on here?" asked Tsunade, making everyone jump.

"Tsunade-sama!" Shizune exclaimed, walking over to Tsunade, the girl following her. "There you are!"

"Have you introduced everyone?" asked Tsunade.

Shizune shrugged sheepishly. "Well, they sort of introduced themselves…"

**O...O**

"Oh well, it doesn't really matter. They can all get acquainted with each other as soon as this girl is ready to start training." Tsunade walked over and placed her hand on my shoulder. I was highly confused; no one had told me that I could start training so soon. After all, Tsunade and Shizune had forbidden me to leave until now.

"So?" asked Tsunade. "How soon are you ready to leave?"

All of a sudden, I wasn't quite so sure if I really wanted to leave the safety and comfort of this place. I had gotten so used to living here that it came as quite a shock to have the opportunity to go anywhere else. But then I remembered how much I had wanted to be free of here, to live normally for once. Finally, I gave my response.

"I'll go pack."

**...O...**

**It's a little short, but I've been having a bad case of writer's block...But I'll try to get the next chappie up soon! Oh yeah, the dividing lines aren't working on my computer at the moment for some unknown reason, so I just used wierd smiliey things until they can work again...so please bear with me...**

**-.O**


	3. Training and a shiny sword

A few minutes later, I was walking down the street for the first time. Fortunately, I had gotten a chance to change into clean clothes. Instead of the wrinkled blue kimono, I wore a light blue, sleeveless kimono-like top over a short-sleeved fishnet shirt. I also wore a long green skirt made from a shimmery material, and it was split down the side to allow for easier movement, with black pants underneath. I buckled a short, double-edged sword at my waist, and around my forehead was a headband similar to the others', except it had the symbol for what Tsunade had told me was the Hidden Mist Village, where I was apparently from. I had also managed to brush my hair and tied it together at the ends with a black satin ribbon.

But I was not alone. I was with the people I had met earlier, whose names I had learned were Uchiha Sasuke, Uzumaki Naruto, Haruno Sakura, and their masked sensei Hatake Kakashi. If only I could introduce myself as easily.

While the others chatted, I walked in silence, thinking. It was sort of hard to do, though, since I was having difficulty blocking out Naruto's loud voice.

"And then, as we were leaving, remember how Sasuke was all spastic?" he said, laughing. "Just because he pictured Kakashi-sensei as a beaver! Ha! Who would've expected the great Uchiha to be scared of a _rodent_? But then again, it's not so hard to imagine, would it? What about you, Nee-chan? Do you find that hard to believe?" When no one responded, Naruto raised his voice. "Oi, Nee-chan, are you even listening? Helllooo, anyone there?"

I then realized that "Nee-chan" referred to me. I looked up and saw Naruto, grinning at his own story, and behind him were Sakura and Sasuke, both looking like they were about to beat Naruto to a pulp.

I was at a loss on how to reply, since I hadn't been paying attention at all, so I said the first thing that popped into my head. "Oh, um…that's…very, erm—interesting, Naruto-kun…"

Sakura sighed. "You know Naruto, she wasn't even listening."

Naruto's face fell. "You weren't?"

Again, I didn't know how to reply. "Actually, no I wasn't, sorry. I just have a lot of things on my mind is all."

Naruto was silent for a moment, but then he suddenly grinned widely. "It's okay, Nee-chan! I'll leave you alone for a while so you can think." He went marching ahead of us, almost _too_ happily.

A few minutes later, we arrived at a large clearing in what looked like a sort of park. Looking around, I noticed that there were three upright logs nearby, and also a stone that looked like some sort of monument. Kakashi stood in front of us, hands in his pockets.

"All right," he said, "We're going to try to disarm you, to see if you have any strong defensive jutsus of any sort. Now Naruto, Sakura, Sasuke, you three try to hide. Everyone ready? On three, then. One…"

I looked around. Naruto gulped, looking nervous and glancing slightly in my direction; Sakura stared determinedly ahead; and Sasuke remained expressionless.

"Two..."

I gripped the hilt of my sword until my knuckles were as white as my face.

"...Three."

The four of them vanished instantly, perfectly hidden in the surrounding forest. Well, almost perfectly...you see, I already knew where they were.

I smirked, relaxing. I could sense their presences around me...Kakashi in the trees nearby, reading a strange orange book; Sakura behind a cluster of rocks; Sasuke in some underbrush near Sakura, circling around to sneak up behind me...

...and Naruto was in plain view, right in front of me.

"All right Nee-chan!" he shouted. "Even if I might accidentally hurt you, I'm gonna help you remember! And I'm not going easy on you just 'cause you're a girl! Now here I come! _Kage bunshin no jutsu!_"

Ten of Naruto's copies then appeared and started running in my direction. I searched for an opening, glancing between the doppelgangers, trying to find the real Naruto, but no luck. So I just stuck out my foot and tripped the nearest one, sending him crashing to the ground. I continued like this, tripping, punching, and pretty much just beating up the shadow clones. Within a few moments moment, all of the bunshins disappeared, and Naruto lied facedown in the dirt.

"Sorry Naruto," I whispered. But then, I sensed another presence behind me.

Sakura held back a gasp to avoid giving away her location. She had never seen anything like it; Sasuke had snuck up behind the girl while she was preoccupied with Naruto, but she had whirled around, drew her sword, and deflected all of Sasuke's weapons, all in one motion. Not only that. Sasuke had shown a momentary flicker of fear in his eyes.

_Hmmmm, very interesting_, Kakashi thought, turning to the next page of _Itcha Itcha Paradise_. _I wonder what'll happen next. With Naruto out cold, there's no telling what could happen._


End file.
